“Like all council’s in Scotland, East Renfrewshire has national targets to meet on recycling and landfill diversion.

“The changes we are introducing will help residents to increase their household recycling which will reduce the volume of residual waste collected.

“By reducing the overall volume of residual waste that goes straight to landfill we will minimise the rapidly increasing costs to the Council of landfill charges and fines and reduce the risk of the charges being passed back to local tax payers.”

Households around the area are in the process of being supplied with a small, indoor kitchen caddy which can be used to collect food waste before it is placed in the brown bin.

Uplifts of recycling will continue as it currently does, with an unlimited amount of recycling allowed.

The spokesperson continued:

“The national zero waste plan, which intends to move the country towards a zero waste culture, will commit the council to longer term recycling targets of 60% by 2020 and 70% by 2025, with no more than 5% landfill permissible by 2025.

“The council will operate a better balanced waste collection service – shift in focus from rubbish collection to maximising recycling and composting; as a community we will divert waste from landfill generating both financial and environmental benefits.”

The council also says that any excess waste will not be collected once the changes come into force.

Changes to the waste collection service only affect those properties which currently have wheeled bin collections and a kerbside recycling